FOUNDATION STATEMENT: As believers to be successful in our endeavors we have to live in divine order. We can’t do things out of order then expect to get the results that God has promised us. To get the result that God wants us to get, we have to lay the foundation first and the foundation to everything that we do is the love of God. Without the foundation of love in place, nothing else works the way it is supposed to work.
I. Until the Love of God is primary in your life you will continue to live your Christian life with spotted results always having form, but constantly lacking the power
A. When you neglect the commandment of love you deny the power to get results (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
1. People have form but no power because they neglect what’s primary
a. These people loved themselves, loved pleasures, but didn’t love God; they didn’t keep the commandment
2. When you neglect the love, you deny the power, and all you have is a whole lot of form, but you never see any genuine results
a. Love is the power that makes all of this Word work, and when you neglect love, you have form, but no results
b. You can’t neglect the thing that makes all of this work and then be surprised when it doesn’t work for you
1) Love is the power in prayer that makes prayer work; Love is the power if faith that makes faith work, ECT.
2) Power is the ability to get results
c. EXAMPLE: It’s like having house all wired up with the light switches in, the light bulbs in, and but not having your house connected to the power company. You turn the light switch up with your light bulb in and you have form, but the light doesn’t come on because you don’t have power.
3. Christian people should be getting results (Deuteronomy 7:14)
a. I don’t want to have the facade of a Christian only to look at the results in my life and see little to do difference between me and the world.
b. My life is my witness and the more of God’s “love and goodness” that is showing in my life, the more people will draw to (Matthew 5:14)
II. The love of God must be primary if you want results
A. Matthew 22:38 – (AMP) – Principal (main, primary, prime, major, most important, key) command
1. First – Chronologically or in order of importance, best, chief, or beginning
a. Nothing is better or more important than this
2. Great – (Mega) of position, important – positionally there’s nothing greater than this
B. The commandment of love is the beginning of everything that we do as believers – You always start with this
1. The way laying the foundation is the beginning of building a house, this commandment of love is the beginning of everything we build as believers
a. If I start with something other than the foundation then what I’m building will never succeed
2. Before you start building your financial prosperity you lay the foundation by asking yourself:
a. Am I loving the Father with all of my heart? Do I constantly spend time listening to wrong word seeds and allow those word seeds to be sown into my spirit? Do I keep my heart with all diligence and only sow God’s Word in there?
b. Am I loving the Father with all of my mind? Is this commandment on my mind? Do I think on things and take thoughts that don’t line up with the Word without casting them down?
c. Am I loving the Father all my will? Do I do things and make decisions that don’t please the Father?
d. Am I loving the Father with all my emotions? Do I control my emotions are do my emotions control me?
e. Am I loving my neighbor as myself?
f. Is this commandment priority one in my life? Is it on me mind? Am I doing my best to grow in it? Do I acknowledge when I violate it and repent of it?
3. Then you love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength where your financially prosperity is concerned.
a. I’m going to love God with all of my heart where my financially prosperity is concerned by only sowing His Word in there on finical prosperity and by guarding my with word seeds that oppose him.
b. I’m going to love God with all of my mind, by only thinking on what His Word Says where my financial prosperity is concerned.
c. I’m going to love God with all of my will, by make the decisions that he would have me to make where my finically prosperity is concerned.
d. I’m going to love God with all my emotion by keeping my emotions in line with his Word where my financial prosperity is concerned.
e. I’m going to love me neighbor as myself where my financial prosperity is concerned.
C. The preeminence of love
1. Colossians 3:14 – Above all these things put on love
a. Love is the binding factor that holds all of this together making it usable
2. 1 Peter 4:8 – Above ALL THINGS put on love
3. 1 Corinthians 12:31 – A gift that is better and higher than them all
a. AMP-But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all—love].
b. 1 Corinthians 13:1-4,13 – The greatest is love
4. 1 Corinthians 14:1 – Make love your aim and great quest
a. AMP EAGERLY PURSUE and seek to acquire [this] love [make it your aim, your great quest];
b. Follow after – pursue, pursuing a person on foot in a chase, striving and pressing on to a goal with intensity, press on
III. Why is there such priority on this commandment of Love?
A. Without it you don’t have peace, you don’t have joy, you don’t have prosperity, you don’t have healing, you don’t have deliverance. All you have is a bunch of counterfeits with no real power to back them up.
1. EXAMPLE: It looks like faith, but it’s a counterfeit. Because for it to be real faith it has to work by love. It looks like the real, but it isn’t real.
B. Psalm 11:3 – If the foundation is there, what can you do? Nothing
1. When you build a house you start with the foundation first because if you don’t the walls won’t work the way their supposed to work, the roof won’t work the way it’s supposed to work, and nothing will work the way its supposed to work and it won’t be long until you’re in the middle of that house with every part of it piled up on you, not working.
2. That’s the picture of Christianity we tried to live our Christian lives without laying the foundation first and now many Christians are just sitting down in middle of the house of their lives with all these great things on top of them not working. You know they’re supposed to work, but their not.
C. When you put your rod back all these things start to work a lot better.
1. Example: That day on the hill when joy started working
IV. It’s a commitment to the commandment of Love that will enable you to walk in the fullness of the promises of God (1 Corinthians 13:9)
A. Many believers walk in a partialness of joy, peace, faith, prosperity, and victory, but when the love of God comes on the scene that which is in part will be done a way with and you will experience joy, peace, faith, and victory if fullness like you never have before.
1. I’ve had enough parts, I want fullness!!!
2. God is ready to get rid of spotted results with fullness
B. Love will take you from partial to fullness
1. Love will take you from meritocracy to God’s best
2. Diligence in the commandment of love is the key to living a life of fullness
3. Love makes all the things work on the highest level
V. What is the commandment of Love? (Matthew 22:37)
A. Love the Lord Your God with all of your HEART
1. To love God with all of your heart is to guard your heart and keep out all intruders and word seeds that are in opposition to God’s Word (Mark 4:14-15, Proverbs 4:23)
a. Genesis 2:15 – Adam got in trouble because he didn’t guard his garden Satan came in and sowed words seeds
2. To love God with all your heart is to sow the seed of His word into it so that His Word can reproduce and manifest in your life
a. You feed your spirit on the Word of God and nourish it and take good care of it
b. If I love God with all of my heart then I’m constantly feeding my heart the Word of God
B. Love the Lord Your God with all of your soul – Mind
1. To love God with your mind means that you love God with every thought that you think – You diligently do 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
a. You set your mind on the commandment of love and when any thought comes into your head that opposes that commandment or the Word of God you cast it down
b. Every thought you think is filtered through that commandment and if it’s not in line with that commandment you get rid of it
2. Love thoughts will lead you into love ways and love ways will lead you into the abundant life
C. Love the Lord your God with all of your soul – Will
1. To love God with all of your will is to love God with every choice that you make (John 14:15, 1 John 5:3)
a. The deciding factor for the decisions that you make is no longer how is this going to make me feel, but the basis for every decision that you make is now, does this minister love to the Father
b. I don’t make my decisions based on how I feel about them, I make my decisions day based on whether they minister love to the Father
2. The greatest love statement that ever came from the lips of man (Matthew 26:36-41, Luke 22:44)
a. Jesus’ flesh was fighting going to the cross. His flesh didn’t want to go. There’s an extreme amount of pressure that he’s feeling. There was a heaviness that fell upon him. His spirit wants to do one thing; his flesh wants to do another. His soul (mind, will, and emotions) is sorrowful. The pressure is so great that he is resisting to the point that blood starts dripping like sweat would from his pours. And then out of nowhere the greatest statement of love that has ever fallen from the lips of man comes pouring out of him, “Father not as I will, but as you will.”
1) He wouldn’t allow himself to be on his mind.
2) I firmly believe he was up there confessing this commandment
3) It was a love act that was driven and motivated by the compassion that was flowing in his heart
b. Jesus had this commandment on His mind and He was loving God with all of his soul – His mind, will/choices/decisions, and feelings/emotions and loving his neighbor (that’s us) as himself.
1) He loved the Father by obeying Him and going to the cross and he loved you by giving you his life.
2) Every time we confess that commandment, we’re saying the same thing, “Not my will Father, but your will.”
3. To love God with all your will is to love him with every thought you chose to think
a. No matter how much pressure is on me I choose to think thoughts that God told me to think
4. To love God with all your will is to love him with every word that you chose to speak
a. No matter how much pressure is on my I choose to say what God has told me to say
1) To say something that is in opposition to what God said is to violate the commandment of love (Romans 14:23)
b. John 12:49, John 8:26 – I only say what my Father says
1) Ephesians 4:28 – You don’t talk negatively about others
2) Mark 11:23 – You don’t make negative confessions
5. To love God with all your will is to love him with every action that you chose to take
a. John 5:19,30 – I only do what my father tells me to do
b. You love him with what you choose to do with your time and what you choose to do with your money
D. Love the Lord your God with all of your Soul – Emotions
1. If your emotions don’t line up with the Word of God then you get into the Word of God until your emotions change to line up with his word
VI. As a believer you have to set up a love line boundary for your life and make a decision to absolutely refuse to cross that line come hell or high water (2 Corinthians 5:14)
A. Constrains (synecho) – to cover, to crowd against, to guard, to hold in custody, to compel, to urge on, held, keep in, stops, throngs
1. The Apostle Paul is saying there’s a love fence that I’ve established in my life and it keeps me from thinking certain things that I shouldn’t think, saying certain things that I shouldn’t say, and doing certain things that I shouldn’t do
2. To think that or say that or do that I would have to cross the love fence and get out there where nothing works
B. The Love of God works in my mind like a filter and if it’s not love I don’t think it, say it, or do it because it’s a love filter that filters anything that’s not love
1. This love commandment should be on your mind to the point that it filters out anything that is not love or faith